“Victim”-ized

I’m grateful to the Arcata Theatre Lounge for canceling Bounty Killer’s concert as soon as they discovered that he sings songs encouraging the murder of gay people. Bob Doran, on the other hand, seems determined to offend.

In “The Hum,” he describes Rodney Basil Price (aka Bounty Killer), as “the victim (if that’s the right word) of the anti-gay-bashing blacklist” (Nov. 26). No, Mr. Doran, “victim” is not the right word. The word that was available to you, and that surely came to mind, is “target.” When the schoolyard bully is made to sit in detention, he is a victim only in his own eyes and perhaps in the eyes of other bullies.

Like other “murder music” singers, Bounty Killer has had the opportunity to have the boycott lifted simply by agreeing not to sing lyrics encouraging murder of gay people or, for that matter, anyone at all. He has refused.

People do not have a “free speech” right to encourage and threaten the murder of minority groups, whether in song or not. This is not only common sense, it is Supreme Court precedent in Virginia v. Black, a cross-burning case.